Challenging and changing the healthcare landscape, globally

As I continue to learn in my new role, I find it fascinating to learn more about specific regions of the world. A few months ago, I visited London for the HIMSS conference. I also recently returned from the Health Information Management Association of Australia (HIMAA) conference.

Each year, the HIMAA conference brings together health records professionals to network and learn the latest in the acquisition, analysis, and protection of medical information. This year, the theme was ‘Healthcare Information Management: Challenging a Changing Landscape.’

Each landscape is different, as I’m learning throughout the world. In Australia, healthcare software solutions are helping to digitize the patient record. This can be anything from scanning, storing, or retrieving patient information to give clinicians easy access to patient records. Or it can mean providing innovative solutions like electronic forms. No need to print and sign something when you can just sign on a tablet and have it automatically inputted into the patient’s record.

Utilize what you already own

I really enjoyed talking to our customers, in particular, one of our big advocates at a hospital in Australia. She’s a systems administrator and just gets it – how the right healthcare software solutions can eliminate data silos, minimize IT sprawl, and help departments across the organization become more efficient.

Her mission lately has been explaining this message to her peers. So often, departments go out and purchase their own IT solutions to solve specific department needs.

She’s trying to challenge them to stop and say, “Have you considered utilizing the enterprise information platform we already own instead of purchasing yet another solution?”

She’s even gone so far as to set up a ‘Wonders of OnBase’ meeting. I love that meeting title! By bringing to light the many capabilities of Hyland Healthcare solutions – including OnBase – organizations can consolidate applications and make patient records easily accessible for clinicians.

But our solutions help more than just clinicians. We also help reduce the number of apps IT has to support. Not only can you use our solutions on the clinical side, one of my colleagues in Australia told me how excited he is to see our customers using our solutions on the business side, too. One customer just implemented an integration with an ERP to support its payroll department.

Sounds like another wonder of OnBase to me.

It was also great to visit with my colleagues who support the AsiaPac region. Their knowledge alone is enough to compel me to sit around, listen, and be a sponge. I find it fascinating to hear what organizations are facing in the region, how we have been helping them, and how we can continue to help.

Hyland’s very own Laura Pietromica, our lead customer advisor, was even a keynote speaker. She talked about the role of health records in IT governance. Laura’s been a speaker at a few different Australian conferences, so it was neat to see people recognize her and tell her they love her presentations!

The World Health Organization’s Nenad Kostanjseik also talked about the changes ICD-11 brings. He noted how the world needs better health data and ICD-11 delivers it. It also helps keep data out of those pesky silos that make it hard to find and difficult to share.

Digitally transform your landscape

In healthcare IT, I feel like people use the word “digitization” in every other sentence. Australia is no different. These health record professionals understand the landscape is truly changing, and they need to be ready to support that change.

It was interesting to listen to a children’s hospital in Australia talk about how refreshing it was to remove file shelves, paper, cabinets, etc. – all unnecessary when you go digital. Not only does it free space and save money, using the right technology, you can make all that digital data immediately available across the enterprise.

The lack of a digital health record presents challenges and a compromised patient experience, according to Scott Pickard from Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service. Right now, he said, there are healthcare organizations that share information on a need-to-know basis, when they should be working with a need-to-share mindset.

No matter how much the landscape continues to change, at the end of the day, it’s all about the patients. With the power of all that technology available to healthcare organizations, we simply can’t let patients experience the impact of fragmented information.

Amy Oliver brings nearly 10 years of marketing experience to her role in healthcare global programs at Hyland where she develops marketing programs to support the healthcare business. Amy earned a bachelor’s degree in Communications with a concentration in Marketing from Mercyhurst University. Outside of living the #HylandLife, Amy enjoys rooting on the Cleveland Indians with her husband, spending time with their two dogs, or reading a good book in the sunshine.